Sunday, March 29, 2015

Staunton,
March 29 – In its new 11,500-word report on the ways in which Russian officials
are misusing the country’s anti-extremism laws, the SOVA human rights
monitoring organization concludes that one of the most important trends of the
last year is a dramatic increase in the role of the FSB in such actions.

There are
two basic sources of such misuse: excessive actions by poorly trained law
enforcement personnel who are given little guidance by the laws themselves and “the
conscious formation of mechanisms for suppression of opposition and simply
independent forms of activity” (polit.ru/article/2015/03/28/antiextremism/).

The latter
has become “much more in evidence from the middle of 2012” when the authorities
used anti-extremism laws to suppress opposition protests.“Unfortunately,” SOVA writes, “with the falloff
in opposition activity, the growth of the repressive component did not cease”
but in fact increased.

Russia’s
involvement in Ukraine has been the occasion if not the cause for five distinct
trends that the SOVA report details. First, since the Crimean Anschluss, the
anti-extremist laws have been made harsher and “’the space of illegality’ has
been broadened,” something Russian courts have not prevented but rather
facilitated.

Second, the
Russian authorities have extended the application of this legislation into the
Internet even though the nature of that sphere makes it almost impossible for
them to achieve their ends unless they are prepared to shut down all access to
the world wide web, something that would entail serious negative consequences
for Russia.

Third, the
SOVA report continues, because of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, Moscow and
its officials have used anti-extremist laws as a way of suppressing any
criticism of their actions.

Fourth, in the
face of an ever more xenophobic environment, Moscow has doubled the number of
cases it has brought against people for stirring up hatred of one kind or
another. Not only has the number of such cases increased, SOVA says, but the
share of them which are unjustified has as well.

And fifth, because
the Ukrainian events intersect with concerns about Russian national security,
the FSB has significantly increased its involvement in anti-extremist cases,
something that has added yet another reason why such cases constitute a misuse
of the law for political ends.

But Moscow’s
focus on Ukraine in this area has not led to a reduction in the number of cases
brought inappropriately under this legislation against religious minorities and
against individuals for statements that in no reasonable way can be said to fall
within the terms of the poorly drawn laws, SOVA argues.

There are
two places where the situation appears to have become somewhat better over the
past year, the report suggests. On the one hand, the rate at which items are
being added to the Federal List of Extremist Materials has slowed. And on the
other, the number of cases being brought against librarians has fallen.

But
overall, the SOVA report concludes, Russian officials continue to misuse
anti-extremism laws and are “obviously not prepared either to liberalize” them
or even work to reduce the most obvious violations of even the formulations of existing
laws by the police and the FSB.